Masson

by Otto Hahn

Andre Masson / Modern Artists Series

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1965

About the author

Otto Hahn, OBE, ForMemRS was a German chemist and pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission. He is regarded as one of the most significant chemists of all times and especially as "the father of nuclear chemistry".

Hahn was an opponent of Jewish persecution by the Nazi Party and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner against the use of nuclear energy as a weapon. He served as the last President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society (KWG) in 1946 and as the founding President of the Max Planck Society (MPG) from 1948 to 1960. Considered by many to be a model for scholarly excellence and personal integrity, he became one of the most influential and revered citizens of the new Federal Republic of Germany.

On 15 November 1945 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Hahn had been awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his discovery of the fission of heavy atomic nuclei." Some historians have documented the history of the discovery of nuclear fission and believe Lise Meitner should have been awarded the Nobel Prize with Hahn. Hahn was still being detained at Farm Hall when the announcement was made; thus, his whereabouts were a secret and it was impossible for the Nobel committee to send him a congratulatory telegram. Instead, he learned about his award through the Daily Telegraph newspaper. On 4 December, Hahn was persuaded by two of his captors to write a letter to the Nobel committee accepting the prize. He could not participate in the Nobel festivities on 10 December since his captors would not allow him to leave Farm Hall.

Otto Hahn received many governmental honors and academic awards from all over the world for his scientific work. He was elected member or honorary member of 45 Academies and scientific societies (among them the University of Cambridge, the Physical Society, the University College and the Royal Society in London (1957) and the Academies in Allahabad (India), Bangalore (India), Berlin, Boston, Bucharest, Copenhagen, Göttingen, Halle, Helsinki, Lisbon, Madrid, Mainz, Munich, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna) and received 37 of the highest national and international orders and medals, among them the Gold Medals Emil Fischer, Cannizzaro, Copernicus, Henri Becquerel, Paracelsus and Hugo Grotius, the Max Planck medal, the Faraday Lectureship Prize with Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry in London and the Harnack medal in Gold from the Max Planck Society. In 1956 he received the Gold Cross of Greek Order, in 1957 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire and in 1959 President Charles de Gaulle of France appointed him an Officer of the Légion d'Honneur. Hahn was made a knight of the Peace Class of the Order Pour le Mérite in 1952, and received the Grand Merit Cross with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1954), which was subsequently upgraded in 1959 to Grand Cross 1st class.

In 1957 Hahn was elected an honorary citizen of the city of Magdeburg, DDR (German Democratic Republic), and in 1958 an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (today Russian Academy of Sciences) in Moscow.

In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson of the USA, and the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in Washington awarded Hahn (together with Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann) the Enrico Fermi Prize. This was the only time the Fermi Prize has been awarded to non-Americans.

From 1957, Hahn was repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a number of international organizations, including the largest French trade union, the Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT). Linus Pauling, the 1962 Nobel Peace laureate, once described Otto Hahn as "an inspiration to me."